1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image inspecting apparatus which inspects an image output by an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image inspecting apparatus has been known which uses image information obtained by reading an image formed on a sheet with an image reading unit and inspects whether the image is good or defective using the image information. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-043235 discloses a configuration which discriminates a disorder or the like at a line portion of a formed image, and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-148027 discloses a configuration which discriminates a “contamination”, “color reproducibility”, etc., of a formed image. As an image to be formed is becoming complicated and image quality is being desired to increase, inspection accuracy is also desired to increase. Hence, a time necessary for the inspection increases.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-suggests an image forming apparatus. When formation of a defective image is recognized, the image forming apparatus outputs an image, which is formed in accordance with the same recording information as that used when the defective image is formed, and the image forming apparatus rearranges the order of sheets correctly in the image forming apparatus.
In many image forming apparatuses of electrophotographic type and inkjet type, when an image forming operation is intermittently performed, a certain time is required from suspension to resumption of the image forming operation. Accordingly, the number of image-formed sheets per unit time (productivity) may decrease. For example, when the image forming operation is intermittently performed when sets of a plurality of sheets are printed, the productivity seriously decreases. Thus, in a case where the image forming operation is performed simultaneously with an inspection at an image inspecting apparatus, if an image inspecting speed (the number of inspected sheets per unit time) is slow as compared with the productivity of the image forming apparatus, the continuous image forming operation has to be suspended, or the productivity of the image forming apparatus has to decrease. Also, if the image inspecting speed is controlled to be within a continuously image-forming speed (the number of image-formed sheets per unit time), the number of inspection items and accuracy of the inspection are limited.